Am nearing the end of my journey with the Dracula. Have 96 different species and a few hybrids. Contacted Gary Meyers at Hawk Hills for the remaining few and got this response. I'm blown away by the knowledge of Dr Meyer who may well know as much or more about Dracula than anyone in the US. Some of my requests are possible but I'll post his explanation for the others. adriana - doesn't exist. Taxonomic error of Luer. It's just a lotax and he drew another plant's leaf in the description. I have analyzed the type plants DNA in my studies and it is just lotax. x anicula (natural hybrid of cutiss-bufonis x walisii). Only one very ill plants exists in Colombia. No one in the US has this. antonii (No collection data) - will check on this. Bertha Gates (platycrater x bertha) - should ask Gerardus Stahl about this one. I think he made it. inexperata this has never left Costa Rica. The government wouldn't even let me have a DNA sample. It is probably platycrater. lehmanniana only one plant left as far as I can find in Europe, US, and South America. I tried to go to the site where it is from in Colombia this year and three people got kidnapped while I was there. So will be a while before this is available again. maduroi No plants reliably coming out of Panama. I got a few two years ago and they died. nigiritella (drawing only). Does not exist. I am friends with the original owner and she never found it in her collections after years of searching. pileus (photo by Gary Meyer). J & L is best chance for this. pubescence taxonomic mystery. I have gone to the reserve this is from several times and never see it there. Other scientists who go there always think they find it but it turns out to be something else when I see photos. I think this is a fluke and I think the type plant in EU is dead bc the pieces sent to the US have been wrong. rojasii it's a hybrid. I fought because I didn't want my name on this one and now I have the DNA to show it's fake. sijmii (photo by Eucuagenera) I have one plant but long way from being divideable. syndactyla does not exist in the us. I have tried to go to the site where it is from but it erupted into a battle. It does exist still at the site, just too violent to get there. My 'wish list' will undergo some major modification after reading this. He has some of the others I requested, I hope to get them next month in San Francisco. What a treat to hear from a true expert. Nick

My folks got tons of the political stuff & senior notch babies stuff, mom was in that group. I looked up a bunch of the outfits sending stuff & 1 woman is responsible for at least a dozen of these organizations. Senior Collation? I think was 1 & Americans for Seniors, names like that, I still have the list somewhere I think, but some site gave the amounts she takes in for each of the 12 names of organizations. They all sound very American or include "senior" in the name. She gets over 1 million to several million dollars a year for each organization & it is legal. The gov't said "they think she has 1 lobbyist" another site said lobbyist is her daughter but they didn't know if she ever showed up in front of Congress. Mom stopped all checks & after a couple of months the mail dropped off dramatically. This all started when she was sending a local politician checks years ago.

Well put, Bill! One can never forget the basics of firearm safety. Tradgies like the one you mention are fuel for the fire of anti-hunting people who would like to see all of us turned out of the forest for the sins of a few. I cringe when I am in the woods and here mutiple gunshots, one right after another. Why do some people not relize those bullets are going somewhere and can hit anything that is in their path? We are responsible for the image we create of ourselves and our sport and, quite honestly, there are some who are ruining it for everyone. Two more basic rules that should NEVER be forgotten - 1 - Treat every gun as if it is loaded. ['Nuff said!] 2 - Never point a weapon at anything that you do not intend to shoot. [A scope is not a set of binoculars!] Thanks Bill for the reminder! nova

>>b-4 our new marxist regime takes over.Ummmmm. Last I checked it was the BUSH administration putting the government in the business of bank ownership? And it's the BUSH administration and the rest of the Republocrats handing over OUR tax $$$ to a bunch of their cronies like GM and Citibank whose firms are going to go bankrupt because of their poor foresight and inability to meet market demands while paying their CEO's billions? And lets see, it's the BUSH administration took a budget surplus in 2000 and turned it into a record-breaking deficit, while creating the biggest government and government debt in history, including an entire new cabinet-level beaurocracy (Dept of "Homeland Security") to suck billions of dollars towards creating an atmosphere of fear? Are you safer now than you were in 2000? Think again. And the NEXT guys are the "marxists" and crooks who will create big government and mishandle our tax dollars? What planet are you on? I'm just glad BUSHCO didn't get their hands on privatizing my Social Security. At least the money I'm losing in my 403b isn't my social security for the future, just my own damn money. Perhap I'll have something to live on in my old age, thanks to FDR. I hope that Obama can provide us with the "Next Deal" to get us out of the Great Depression II that Bush has pushed us into. World War I was just known as the "Great War" until World War II came along. Now we'll have the "Depression I" and the "Depression II" to tell our grandkids about.